Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T16:03:02.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Military Lawyers Making Law: Israel’s Governance of the West Bank and Gaza

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2019

Maayan Geva
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This Article examines Israeli military lawyers’ practice of international humanitarian law (IHL) revolving around the West Bank and Gaza. Based on interviews with legal officers serving in the army between 1967–2009 and archival materials, it interrogates these lawyers’ work—the stories that they tell about law, their legal interpretations and their interactions with military decision makers. This interrogation is set in the context of broader structural, historical, and political shifts. Anchored around lawyers’ stories about law, their narration of law’s relationship with politics, and its position in relation to violence, this account sets out to contribute to discussions on lawyers’—and by extension law’s—past and present positions in states’ military affairs.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 704 - 725
Copyright
© 2019 American Bar Foundation 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author thanks the following people for comments, criticisms, and editorial assistance: John Lea, Rachel Seoighe, and Hedi Viterbo.

References

REFERENCES

Abbott, Kenneth W., et al. “The Concept of Legalization.” International Organization 54, no. 3 (2000): 401–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abel, Richard L. Politics by Other Means: Law and the Struggle Against Apartheid, 1980–1994. New York: Routledge, 1995.Google Scholar
Alexandrowicz, Ra’anan. “The Law in These Parts.” Roco Films International, 2013.Google Scholar
Anghie, Antony. “The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities.” Third World Quarterly 27, no. 5 (2006): 739–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
B’tselem. 2016. “Fatalities Before Operation ‘Cast Lead.’” http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/before-cast-lead/by-date-of-event.Google Scholar
Barzilai, Gad. “Between the Rule of Law and the Laws of the Ruler: The Supreme Court in Israeli Legal Culture.” International Social Science Journal 49, no. 2 (1997): 193–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barzilai, Gad. “The Ambivalent Language of Lawyers in Israel: Liberal Politics, Economic Liberalism, Silence and Dissent.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism. Edited by Halliday, Terence C., Karpik, Lucien, and Feeley, Malcolm M., 247–77. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2007.Google Scholar
Barzilai, Gad. “The Ambivalence of Litigation: A Criticism of Power.” Jadal 13 (2012).Google Scholar
Ben-Naftali, Orna. “PathoLAWgical Occupation: Normalizing the Exceptional Case of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Other Legal Pathologies.” In International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law: Pas de Deux. Edited by Ben-Naftali, O., 129–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blau, Uri, and Feldman, Yotam. “How IDF Legal Experts Legitimized Strikes Involving Gaza Civilians.” Haaretz. January 23, 2009.Google Scholar
Blum, Gabriella. “The Role of the Client: The President’s Role in Government Lawyering.” Boston College International & Comparative Law Review 32 (2009): 275–87.Google Scholar
Burrage, Michael C. “Revolution as a Starting Point for the Comparative Analysis of the French, American, and English Legal Professions.” In Lawyers in Society: Comparative Theories. Edited by Abel, Richard L. and Lewis, Philip, 322–74. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Craig, Alan. “Lebanon 2006 and the Front of Legitimacy.” Israel Affairs 15, no. 4 (2009): 427–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, Alan. International Legitimacy and the Politics of Security: The Strategic Deployment of Lawyers in the Israeli Military. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013.Google Scholar
Cohen, Amichai. “Legal Operational Advice in the Israeli Defense Forces: the International Law Department and the Changing Nature of International Humanitarian Law.” Connecticut Journal of International Law 26, no. 2 (2011): 367–413.Google Scholar
Cummings, Scott L. “Introduction: What Good are Lawyers?” In The Paradox of Professionalism: Lawyers and the Possibility of Justice. Edited by Cummings, Scott L., 1–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dezalay, Yves, and Madsen, Mikael Rask. “The Force of Law and Lawyers: Pierre Bourdieu and the Reflexive Sociology of Law.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 8, no. 1 (2012): 433–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickinson, Laura A. “Military Lawyers on the Battlefield: An Empirical Account of International Law Compliance.” American Journal of International Law 104, no. 1 (2010): 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunlap, Charles J. Jr. “The Revolution in Military Legal Affairs: Air Force Legal Professionals in 21st Century Conflicts.” Air Force Law Review 51 (2001).Google Scholar
Dunlap, Charles J. Jr. “Lawfare: A Decisive Element of 21st-Century Conflicts?” Joint Force Quarterly 54 (2009): 34–39.Google Scholar
Erakat, Noura. “Taking the Land without the People: The 1967 Story as Told by the Law.” Journal of Palestine Studies 47, no. 1 (2017): 18–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Silbey, Susan S.. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Yotam, and Blau, Uri. “Consent and Advise.” Haaretz. January 29, 2009. http://www.haaretz.com/consent-and-advise-1.269127.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, Menachem. “Legal Perspective in the Fight against Terror. The Israeli Experience.” IDF Law Review 1 (2003): 341–49.Google Scholar
Fogelman, Shay. “Shock and Awe.” Haaretz. December 31, 2010. https://www.haaretz.com/1.5101984.Google Scholar
Geva, Maayan. Law, Politics and Violence in Israel/Palestine. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginosar, Shlomo. Editorial. Davar. October 10, 1988.Google Scholar
Gordon, Neve, and Berkovitch, Nitza. “Human Rights Discourse in Domestic Settings: How Does it Emerge?” Political Studies 55, no. 1 (2007): 243–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Neve, and Perugini, Nicola. “The Politics of Human Shielding: On the Resignification of Space and the Constitution of Civilians as Shields in Liberal Wars.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 34, no. 1 (2016): 168–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregory, Derek. “War and Peace.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35, no. 2 (2010): 154–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunneflo, Markus. Targeted Killing: A Legal and Political History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadar, Zvi. “Illegal Command.” Systems (Ma’arachot) 225 (1972).Google Scholar
Hajjar, Lisa. Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza. Oakland: University of California Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajjar, Lisa. “International Humanitarian Law and ‘Wars on Terror’: A Comparative Analysis of Israeli and American Doctrines and Policies.” Journal of Palestine Studies 36, no. 1 (2006): 21–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, Terence C., et al. “The Legal Complex in Struggles for Political Liberalism.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism. Edited by Halliday, Terence C., Karpik, Lucien, and Feeley, Malcolm M., 1–42. Oxford: Hart, 2007.Google Scholar
Hasian, Marouf Jr. Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza: Telegenic Lawfare and Warfare. Oxon: Routledge, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IDF. IDF Spokesperson. March 3, 1990.Google Scholar
Inbar, Zvi. “The MAG Corps and the Held Territories.” Law and Military: The IDF Legal System’s Publication 16, no. 1 (2002).Google Scholar
Inbar, Zvi. Scales and Sword: The Basis of Military Law in Israel. Tel Aviv: Israel Defense Forces Publishing, MAG Corps, 2005.Google Scholar
Jones, Craig A. “Frames of Law: Targeting Advice and Operational Law in the Israeli Military.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33, no. 4 (2015): 676–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Craig A. “Lawfare and the Juridification of Late Modern War.” Progress in Human Geography 40, no. 2 (2016a): 221–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Craig A. “Targeted Killing, Lawfare and the Deconstruction of the Battlefield.” In American Studies Encounters the Middle East. Edited by Lubin, Alex and Kraidy, Marwan M., 207–40. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016b.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Craig A., and Michael, D. Smith. “War/Law/Space: Notes Toward a Legal Geography of War.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33 (2015): 581–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasher, Asa. “A Moral Evaluation of the Gaza War– Operation Cast Lead.” JCPA. 2010. http://jcpa.org/article/a-moral-evaluation-of-the-gaza-war-%E2%80%93-operation-cast-lead.Google Scholar
Kennedy, David. Of War and Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, Martti. “The Politics of International Law.” European Journal of International Law 1 (1990): 4–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kretzmer, David. The Occupation of Justice: The Supreme Court of Israel and the Occupied Territories. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Lohr, Michael F., and Gallotta, Steve. “Legal Support in War: The Role of Military Lawyers.” Chicago Journal of International Law 4, no. 2 (2003): 465–78.Google Scholar
Luban, David J. “Military Necessity and the Cultures of Military Law.” Leiden Journal of International Law 26, no. 02 (2013): 315–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masri, Mazen. “Colonial Imprints: Settler-Colonialism as a Fundamental Feature of Israeli Constitutional Law.” International Journal of Law in Context 13, no. 3 (2017): 388–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelblit, Avichai. The Testimony of the MAG, Avichai Mendelblit, in Front of the Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010 (Turkel Commission), Part 2. 2010.Google Scholar
Mitchell, George. Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee Report. 2001. http://eeas.europa.eu/mepp/docs/mitchell_report_2001_en.pdf.Google Scholar
Nelson, Robert L., and Trubek, David M.. “Introduction: New Problems and New Paradigms in Studies of the Legal Profession.” In Lawyers’ Ideals/Lawyers’ Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession. Edited by Nelson, Robert L., Trubek, David M., and Solomon, Rayman L., 1–28. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
New York Times “Israel Declines to Study Rabin Tie to Beatings.” July 12, 1990.Google Scholar
Orr, Zvika, and Golan, Daphna. “Human Rights NGOs in Israel: Collective Memory and Denial.” The International Journal of Human Rights 18, no. 1 (2014): 68–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sfard, Michael. “International Litigation in Domestic Courts.” The Trial (HaMishpat) 9 (2004).Google Scholar
Shamgar, Meir. “Reaction to the Finding of Weapon.” Internal IDF Memo. 1967.Google Scholar
Shamgar, Meir. “The Observance of International Law in the Administered Territories.” Israel Year book on Human Rights 1 (1971): 262–77.Google Scholar
Shamgar, Meir. Shamgar Book. Tel Aviv: The Israel Bar Publishing House, 2003.Google Scholar
Sharvit Baruch, Pnina. “Hamas, the Gaza War and Accountability under International Law.” Paper presented at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel, June 18, 2009.Google Scholar
Sharvit-Baruch, Pnina, and Neuman, Noam. “Warning Civilians Prior to Attack under International Law: Theory and Practice.” Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 41 (2011): 137–95.Google Scholar
Shefi, Dov. “The Status of the Legal Adviser to the Armed Forces: His Functions and Powers.” Military Law Review 100 (1983): 119–34.Google Scholar
Slim, Hugo. “Why Protect Civilians? Innocence, Immunity and Enmity in War.” International Affairs 79, no. 3 (2003): 481–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straschnov, Amnon. Justice Under Fire. Tel Aviv: Yedioth Aharonoth Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Talmor, Ronny. “The Use of Firearms by the Security Forces in the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem.” B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 1990.Google Scholar
Viterbo, Hedi. “Rights as a Divide-and-Rule Mechanism: Lessons from the Case of Palestinians in Israeli Custody.” Law & Social Inquiry 41, no. 4 (2016).Google Scholar
Weisberg, Richard H. “Loose Professionalism or Why Lawyers Take the Lead on Torture.” In Torture: A Collection. Edited by Levinson, Sanford, 299–306. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Weizman, Eyal. “Legislative Attack.” Theory, Culture & Society 27, no. 6 (2010): 11–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Eyal. The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza. London and New York: Verso Books, 2011.Google Scholar
Weizman, Elian. “Cause Lawyering and Resistance in Israel.” Social & Legal Studies 25, no. 1 (2015): 43–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winograd, Eliyahu. Winograd Commission Report - The Commission of Inquiry into the Events of Military Engagement in Lebanon 2006. 2008.Google Scholar
Yahav, David, and Amit-Kohn, Uzi. Israel, the “Intifada” and the Rule of Law. Tel Aviv: Israel Ministry of Defense Publications, 1993.Google Scholar

CASES CITED

Taha vs. Minister of Defense. 1988. (HCJ) 591.Google Scholar

INTERVIEWS CITED

Officer D. Interview with Maayan Geva. January 16, 2013.Google Scholar
Officer E. Interview with Maayan Geva. November 28, 2012.Google Scholar
Shamgar, Meir. Interview with Maayan Geva. February 25, 2013.Google Scholar
Shiff, Ilan. Interview with Maayan Geva. January 30, 2013.Google Scholar
Straschnov, Amnon. Interview with Maayan Geva. December 31, 2013.Google Scholar
Yahav, David. Interview with Maayan Geva. March 5, 2013.Google Scholar